The Promised Neverland Season 2 Episodes 10 & 11 (Final Impression)

EPISODE 10

How did normal arrows break a bunch of security cameras?

Well, I have nothing to say. Episode 9 was plain awful and fully brought this season to a burning pile of garbage and yet this episode was just as bad, maybe worse because of how stupid and nonsensical it was. Vincent not betraying them was…I should have expected this, I’m dumb for expecting anything good to happen. Isabella turning on Ratri and siding with Emma I expected, and that’s probably the only thing I’m happy about. Anything else would have ruined her character, but I think it’s so funny that the rest of the Moms sided with Isabella too! Like…why? Who are they? Did they always hate how the farms were ran and there were these secret meetings going on with them for insurrection? Where did this come from?! How is it that this whole farm is crumbling in a matter of minutes? How is the security so bad and the demons so weak, and how were they so easily duped?

And suddenly the rest of the demons with the evil blood are rioting and helping too. All of a sudden they hate the farms? They don’t need humans anymore and they suddenly care? Just…just what.

And in the end, Emma still wants to live alongside Peter Ratri after all the horrific things he’s done and the fact he shows no remorse. I’m actually laughing out of insanity now. Like, things keep happening conveniently and going Emma’s way without any repercussions, no depth, no discussion, nothing. Things just keep happening, and I feel so defeated.

Okay, I take it back. The other good thing that came from this episode was Phil. Phil is always good.

EPISODE 11

Yeah, I’m not surprised. I’m not surprised, and yet I can’t stop laughing at how right I was. And what’s worse, the happy ending came in a two minute montage. It’s like, I think of something and the anime delivers but somehow makes it even worse than I thought.

The ending was the happy sunshine rainbow happy ending that I expected. Emma wanted to save the others, change the world (whatever the hell that means), and then return to everyone else in the human world, which is a modern metropolitan city. We saw nothing about the royal family even though they were shown to us, Emma and the others mentioned their enemies being stronger but we never saw a lick of conflict or danger because…again, this was a two minute montage of their years long journey. This wasn’t just a few months, no, this was YEARS. I DON’T KNOW HOW MANY YEARS, BUT MANY SINCE ALL THE KIDS WERE OLDER. And a lot of the things we saw in the montage seemed super important like a cool giant dragon thing with a demon, some ceremony, saving the other children SOMEHOW. Nevermind the fact that Emma and co. have targets on their heads supposedly by the royal family, and yet there were still able to rescue all the other children. Oh, and how exactly did they change the world? Did Mujika just spread her blood everywhere and again the royal family just did nothing? Is everything really all peachy?

There’s pretty much nothing else I can say about this finale, it’s all that I imagined it would be but even worse. I don’t care that Minerva was Peter’s older brother, I don’t even care about this promise anymore because it obviously doesn’t matter. All of the moments that were supposed to be emotional felt so unbelievable empty and pathetic. We know that nothing bad was going to happen to our main characters, so Phil and the others crying for Emma’s safety was pointless. Literally so pointless because they came back in just a couple minutes. It’s so stupid it’s funny.

Honestly, that montage could have been it’s own season. I probably wouldn’t even watch it, but a third season could have easily explored the world and shown us Emma and co’s journey to rescuing everyone. It reminds me of the last two awful episodes of Charlotte where a huge chunk of events happened, but this time it’s even worse because instead of two episodes it was two minutes. It’s simply amazing really.

FINAL IMPRESSION

I have nothing else to say. I feel like there’s so much I want to say, but I don’t even want to bother on such a steaming pile of crap like this. This has to be the worst sequel since Psycho Pass 2, honestly. It’s so much worse than it because while Psycho Pass 2 (i haven’t seen the third one yet) also had bad characters while also messing up characters we knew and loved, it still…sort of had some semblance of the original. Sort of. The Promised Neverland? Nope. Everything from the characters, the pacing, the clever writing, all of it was a complete joke this time and it’s really painful.

The first season of TPN had to be one of my favorites in recent years with it’s great suspenseful world, attention to detail, and great characters. I knew the second season would be a bit different since the story was shifting into a survival show instead of slower horror show. Still, it showed a lot of promise in the beginning. I really loved the first three episodes, and while episode four was a little off, I still liked that one too. The second the anime started going anime original and cutting things out from the manga, without me even knowing that was happening, the anime completely fell apart. Episode 5 was the start of things going bad, and Episode 6 REALLY kicked it into gear. I was really hoping that I was overreacting, but the writing was so nonsensical that I at least felt validated when other people expressed the same concerns as me. From then on, it just got worse and worse and worse that the previous TPN that I loved turned into the stupidest thing with awful writing, plots points that appeared and left in the matter of seconds, and characters that were an empty husk of their former selves.

Be honest with me, did Ray do anything this season? Being part of the main trio, Ray was one of the most important characters from last season in more ways than one. He was also the one in the group to question the others and challenge their ideas. He barely did that this season, he barely did anything. He went along with pretty much everything Emma wanted and didn’t really try to challenge her and just followed her around. And if Ray was useless, then you bet that the rest of the cast was even more pointless. None of them were memorable, no moment left a lasting impression, and if some of them didn’t exist it just wouldn’t change anything.

I was really excited to get to know Mujika and Sonju and they were just as pointless, except for Mujika only because of her special blood. They were probably the most interesting but they were gone from the show for almost all of it and even when they came back we didn’t spend time with them. Emma and Mujika apparently have a special bond with each other but I would have wanted to see more after the beginning but the story just sped through the material in lightning speed. It just kills me whenever I look at the promotional art with Emma and Mujika staring at each other, promising us something exciting and we got absolutely nothing.

And I don’t even need to talk about the story. We all know it’s bad. We all were annoyed with Emma’s naive optimism that still went her way. We know that nothing makes sense, all the conveniences, the fact everyone changes their mind with a few simple words, and that the demons suddenly turned into the most incompetent creatures that they couldn’t even kill a group of kids, or literally do a thing. What do we know about the royal family? Nothing. What happened after all the children were liberated? Nothing. Nothing nothing nothing. No tension, no high stakes, no fear, just nothing.

And all I want to do is just ask: Why? Why do this? What was the point of any of this? Who thought this was a good idea? How could you go from a well-loved smart and exciting show to a jumbled pathetic excuse? I still can’t wrap my head around it, and honestly any answer probably won’t be sufficient to explain such a trainwreck.

This is bad. Bad bad bad. So unbelievably bad. I feel like I keep saying the same thing but it still amazes me. I was so excited for this season and I didn’t think I would leave it feeling so disappointed and upset. I’m just glad that this piece of crap is over. I know the anime made it worse, but I’m not even sure I would even like the manga if the story goes in the same direction. Because I hate the direction the story went so I’m not even sure the manga could save my opinion. I’ll probably check the manga out one day, but it won’t be any time soon. Just thinking about The Promised Neverland brings so much sadness and pain to me, that I’d rather bash my head into a wall than think about it. Sounds extreme but that’s how this season made me feel for most of its runtime.

I’m not even sure what to rate this, I’m jumping between 2-3/10. I only have a very small list of shows rated this low so it really is shocking that I would go this low but it honestly deserves it. I’m taking into account that the first three episodes were fantastic, but the negatives massively outweighed the small positives. A huge disappointment, an abhorrent excuse for a season, and I’m glad I won’t suffer anymore. For the people that enjoyed the first season, don’t even bother watching this please. Don’t let this season taint your memories. Don’t hurt yourselves.